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17 April 2006 |
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http://www.spacewar.com/reports/... |
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Moscow - The chief designer of Russia's intercontinental ballistic missiles has announced coming changes in the country's ICBMs. Russia will announce changes in its strategic nuclear capability by the end of the year, said Yury Solomonov, head and chief designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the designer of ground- and sea-launched nuclear missiles. The chief designer, who has the ground-launched Topol-M or SS-25 Sickle and the sea-launched Bulava-30 or SS-NX-30 intercontinental ballistic missile systems on his record, did not enlarge on details but stated that Moscow would have no less than 2,000 nuclear warheads by 2011, when the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty will be nearing expiry. This is in line with the SORT's requiring that both sides should reduce their nuclear stockpiles to 1,700-2,200 warheads by Dec. 31, 2012. The statement was prompted by a question how Russia was going to maintain the SORT-approved number of warheads as many decommissioned 10-MIRV R-36MUTTKh/R-36M2 Voevodas or SS-18 Satan and six-MIRV UR-100NUTTKhs or SS-19 Stiletto were being replaced every year by single-warhead silo-based and road-mobile RT-2PM2 Topol-Ms. "I cannot answer this question in detail right now," Solomonov said. "This is a confidential issue pertaining to the relations between our country and the United States. However, we are going to notify Washington of upcoming changes in our strategic nuclear forces within two months, and, I think, the information will become public by the end of the year." Importantly, Solomonov said Russia was ahead of the rest of the world in missile defense penetration capability by at least 15 to 20 years. In the light of his earlier remarks that technologically both new missiles could carry no less than three warheads, defense experts are now convinced the announced changes will have to do with the number of warheads per missile. Moreover, media reports, citing Moscow's recent disclosure of a six-MIRV Bulava, designed as part of Russia's effort to implement the Memorandum to START I which expires in 2009, suggested the number of MIRVs per missile was likely to grow to 10 shortly. Solomonov made two other remarks that look important enough if put together. As the first road mobile missile regiment is to enter active service in 2008, the SS-NX-30 also has a three-year flight test program ahead, which means that the first Bulava-armed nuclear submarine Yury Dolgoruky Project 955 Borei will be commissioned in the same year and, probably, that the date should be seen as the next landmark for the qualitative development of Russia's nuclear capability. (Viktor Litovkin is a military commentator for the RIA Novosti news agency. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti.) |
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20 April 2006 |
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http://www.spacewar.com/reports/... |
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Baev noted that the current production scale of six-to-eight Topol-M missiles a year is about four times lower than what is necessary for replacing the old Soviet ICBMs still in service. Washington - Russian policy makers have reacted with fury to a recent article in Foreign Affairs discussing the growing problems Russia has in maintaining its ICBM nuclear delivery systems The article, entitled "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy," by Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, ran in the March issue of Foreign Affairs. And it "exploded like a bomb in the Russia's higher political circles," analyst Pavel Baev wrote in Monday's edition of Eurasia Daily Monitor, which is published by the Jamestown Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank. The article provoked reactions in the Moscow publications "Nezavisimoe voennoe obozrenie on March 31 and in Vedomosti on March 22," Baev wrote. "The argument in the article is hardly new: The quantitative decline and qualitative degradation of Russian strategic forces create a situation where they could be completely obliterated by a first, 'disarming' U.S. strike," Baev wrote. "Whether this crucial threshold in the strategy of nuclear deterrence has already been crossed or will be in the near future is essentially an academic question, but the fact of steadily increasing U.S. superiority is beyond doubt." Baev noted recent Russian reports that their new land-based Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile would be equipped with the same multiple warheads as the sea-launched Bulava ballistic missile. However, he continued, "That might indeed help in preserving the high total count of the warheads but would not resolve the accumulating problems with the delivery systems," he wrote. Baev noted that the current production scale of six-to-eight Topol-M missiles a year is about four times lower than what is necessary for replacing the old Soviet ICBMs still in service. Also, the new Bulava still needs many more tests before it could be ready for deployment in the new generation of nuclear submarines, he wrote. "That essentially means that for the next five years the naval leg of Russian nuclear triad will continue to rely on the SLBMs that are long past their expiration date," Baev wrote. Russia prepares Topol-M missile regiment Russia's first missile regiment equipped with mobile Topol-M ballistic missile systems will be put on combat duty this year, the missile's chief designer said April 13. Yuri Solomonov, director and chief designer at the Institute of Heat Technology, said other countries would be not able to design such missiles for another 15 to 20 years, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. Solomonov also said Topol-M could be deployed as a silo-based or mobile system. Russia has five missile regiments equipped with silo-based Topol-M missiles, RIA Novosti said.
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